In this paper, we propose an algorithm that can efficiently detect and monitor multiple ships in real-time. The proposed algorithm uses morphological operations and edge information for detecting and tracking ships. We used smoothing filter with a $3{ imes}3$ Gaussian window and luminance component instead of RGB components in the captured image. Additionally, we applied Sobel operator for edge detection and a threshold for binary images. Finally, object labeling with connectivity and morphological operation with open and erosion were used for ship detection. Compared with conventional methods, the proposed method is meant to be used mainly in coastal surveillance systems and monitoring systems of harbors. A system based on this method was tested for both stationary and non-stationary backgrounds, and the results of the detection and tracking rates were more than 97% on average. Thousands of image frames and 20 different video sequences in both online and offline modes were tested, and an overall detection rate of 97.6% was achieved.